"Those Who Wish Me Dead" a solid, straightforward chase thriller

Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021)

“Those Who Wish Me Dead” is a pretty lofty and pregnant title for a pretty unexceptional and unpretentious neo-western from director Taylor Sheridan (2017's "Wind River"). Based on Michael Koryta’s 2014 book of the same name, the film is so lean and stripped down to the most basic archetypes as if the script were more of an outline. On the good side of things, this is a tight, straightforward piece of storytelling (author Koryta co-wrote the script with director Sheridan and Charles Leavitt). Sheridan’s cast and direction are so strong anyway that “Those Who Wish Me Dead” makes for a serviceable action programmer. It’s solid as a rock, even if it doesn’t linger like a fire. 

Angelina Jolie can’t even entirely prevent forest fires but does still prove to be a goddamn movie star as Hannah, a damaged smokejumper in Montana. As Hannah is demoted to a fire lookout tower, her Tragic Past of not being able to rescue three young boys in a forest fire comes back to haunt her. 12-year-old Connor (Finn Little) is in need of saving after going on the run with his dad (Jake Webber), a forensic accountant who’s targeted and killed by assassins who have a job to do. (Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult play Jack and Patrick, the kind of vicious, formidable, all-business hired killers you want to see get their satisfyingly gruesome just desserts in a “Saw” movie.) When Connor (who happens to be similar in age to the boys that burned before Hannah’s eyes) crosses paths with Hannah, he will have to stick with her, particularly once the killers turn the forest into an inferno to smoke out their young witness.

It doesn’t take long to believe Angelina Jolie as a drunken firefighter who can outrun lightning and teach a kid “mother pheasant plucker” rhymes. She does her valiant best with the slight characterization of Hannah, who at least receives a simple redemption arc that doesn't leave her immune to bruises. It is a disappointment that Jolie never gets to parachute in the thick of the action, except off the back of a truck to establish her inner daredevil before the plot gets going. Clearly, there’s minimal time for a ton of bonding between Hannah and Connor, but Jolie and Finn Little do make us invested. Little respectably hides his Australian accent and effectively reacts terrified as a child who witnesses his father’s death and is then hunted by his father’s killers. For some reason, Tyler Perry shows up in only one scene as the real Big Bad, but it does prove Perry has more in him than Madea with that commanding voice. 

The two most interesting characters who drift beyond their archetypal molds are sheriff deputy Ethan and his pregnant wife Allison, played by Jon Bernthal and a terrific Medina Senghore. Bernthal always brings more depth to a character than what’s probably written on the page, and does that here, while the fresh-faced Senghore makes one hell of an impression as Allison. More than just Victimized Pregnant Wife, she makes Allison anything but a cowering victim; instead, she’s highly capable and resourceful, having run a survival school, and fun to watch when outsmarting the suited-up, heat-packing men trespassing on her cabin. “Those Who Wish Me Dead” is the kind of well-made chase thriller that doesn’t bother with the boring details or much thematic resonance. On that level, it satisfies in the moment, keeping the danger and tension smoldering to live up to that menacing title.

Grade: B -

Warner Bros. is releasing “Those Who Wish Me Dead” (100 min.) in theaters and on HBO Max on May 14, 2021.